Programming :: Get A Variable To Work As The Index Of An Array?

I am having a little trouble with a Bash shell script that I am working on. It is intended to read the information out of a gedcom genealogy file and determine who has lived in a particular area and output a report based upon who lived in a given area (like the different sections of a bygdebok for example). I am having a number of issues.

1) I can't seem to figure out how to get a variable to work as the index of an array. For example, I am trying to use the variable $individual to count which individual is being read in from the .ged file, and once that is figured out, next I will read in the individual's name, so I would like to create an array of names using the variable

Code:
$individual
as the index of the array. However, if I try the code
Code:
name[$individual]=$lineoftext;

[Code]....

I included only the last few lines of output as to not take up too much space because the output goes on forever, but you get the point from the example. This output has nothing to do with what the final output of the program is intended to be like. It is merely a test to prove that the 2 variables in question are getting their date loaded in properly.